Attention

Tuesday, October 09, 2012

Normally we atGuns.comlike to cheer for gun owners out there. This story is an exception.

Aaron Martin, a 24-year-old from Kansas City, Missouri, was walking home from his second job at 3:30 in the morning when he crossed paths with a would-be robber.Martin reportedthat two suspects drove up next to him in a car. One of the men got out, pointed a shotgun at Martin, and said, “Freeze. Give me all your stuff.”

This is looking like a bad situation – for the robber, that is. Martin may be an average working Joe, but he’s definitely not a push over. Martin served in the U.S. Air Force and two tours in Iraq. A petty thief with a gun is small potatoes compared to the dangers Martin faced overseas. Oh, and by the way -- Martin's second job? He works as a bouncer at a late-night bar. So yeah, these thieves pretty much picked one of the most threatening people in all of Kansas City to attack that night.

As a driver, have you ever been frustrated by the feeling that you’re constantly hitting red lights? Those going down a road near Long Beach should get used to the feeling.

A new type of traffic light in the California neighborhood will always be red — unless it senses you are going the speed limit.

CBS Local out of Los Angelesreports a mile-long stretch of Wardlow Roadwas notorious for speeders. The city tried various tactics to eliminate the violations, but nothing seemed to cause drivers to let up off the pedal.

A former top executive at a USAID contractor has pleaded guilty to embezzling more than $1 million from the agency's global health fund. Mark Adams admitted that he used his position to submit and approve false invoices. He and his wife spent the money to renovate their home and buy luxury cars. Adams faces more than four years in prison. His wife has agreed to serve home confinement.

Passenger screeners at Newark Liberty International Airport have received failing grades for their work. The Transportation Security Administration sent so-called secret shoppers to Newark observe screeners. Its report was obtained by the Newark Star Ledger, which published it yesterday. It says standard pat-downs were performed properly only 16 percent of the time. In no cases did screeners advise passengers of their rights to skip the pat-down and be screened by electronic scanners instead. The observations took place in June. Since then, the paper reports have been working their way up the Homeland Security Department chain of command.

AMSTERDAM -- A newspaper said Monday that Joran van der Sloot, a Dutch man who is serving a 28-year-sentence for murdering a young Peruvian woman, has impregnated a woman while imprisoned in Lima.

The Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf cited Van der Sloot's lawyer Maximo Altez as saying the pregnancy is past its third month, and Van der Sloot himself as having confirmed the news in a telephone call on Saturday.

Nine years after the Supreme Court said colleges and universities can use race in their quest for diverse student bodies, the justices have put this divisive social issue back on their agenda in the middle of a presidential election campaign.

Nine years is a blink of the eye on a court where justices can look back two centuries for legal precedents. But with an ascendant conservative majority, the high court in arguments Wednesday will weigh whether to limit or even rule out taking race into account in college admissions.

The justices will be looking at the University of Texas program that is used to help fill the last quarter or so of its incoming freshman classes. Race is one of many factors considered by admissions officers. The rest of the roughly 7,100 freshman spots automatically go to Texans who graduated in the top 8 percent of their high school classes.

The winner of a roach-eating contest in South Florida died shortly after downing dozens of the live bugs as well as worms, authorities said Monday.

About 30 contestants ate the insects during Friday night's contest at Ben Siegel Reptile Store in Deerfield Beach about 40 miles north of Miami. The grand prize was a python.

Edward Archbold, 32, became ill shortly after the contest ended and collapsed in front of the store, according to a Broward Sheriff's Office statement released Monday. He was taken to the hospital where he was pronounced dead. Authorities were waiting for results of an autopsy to determine a cause of death.

Scores of U.S. troops have been killed by supposed allies within the Afghan military and police forces. These green-on-blue murders prompted the Pentagon to suspend joint patrols. Retired U.S. Marine Bing West, an author and former assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs in the Reagan administration, has been embedded with U.S. troops in Afghanistan on many occasions and just returned from going on a series of patrols.

He told WND’s Greg Corombos there really isn’t more that can be done to screen the Afghans going on these patrols, so our current strategy seems pretty pointless.

“I just don’t know what we’re doing anymore,” said West. “If your degree of trust has gone away, I don’t know what you’re accomplishing when people tell me that we’re partnering. If you think your partner may kill you, there’s something wrong with this as a strategy.”

A seemingly routine interview with WJRT in Flint, Michigan was abruptly ended after GOP vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan and his team got frustrated with the interviewer’s attempt to “stuff words in people’s mouths.” The interview had already run over when Ryan and company shut it down, according to a campaign spokesperson.

The video interview began innocently enough, with a few questions about gun laws in the United States.

“What we’ve learned – if we just put more gun laws in place, it doesn’t actually stop criminals from getting guns and committing these crimes,” Ryan said. “This is why we need economic growth, this is why we need education reform.”

In his presidential proclamationrecognizing Columbus Day issued last week, President Barack Obama said the holiday was a day to “celebrate our heritage as people born of many histories and traditions” and a time to “reflect on the tragic burdens tribal communities bore” since the explorer arrived on the North American continent in 1492.

“Today, we recall the courage and the innovative spirit that carried Christopher Columbus and his crew from a Spanish port to North America, and we celebrate our heritage as a people born of many histories and traditions,” the Oct. 5 proclamation says.

Already under federal investigation for global fraud after a series of WND reports, banking giant HSBC is engaged in a systematic scheme to defraud citizens of India who live abroad out of billion of dollars in investment accounts, according to an Indian source who has provided evidence to WND.

The evidence offered by “Mr. Kumar,” a customer of HSBC Bank PLC both in the United Kingdom and in India, includes documentation from his investment account, his correspondence with HSBC officials, documents misused by the bank and various legal opinions detailing the manner in which the fraud was committed.

In honor of Columbus Day, Marc Lamont Hill, associate professor of English education at Columbia University, HuffPost Live host and political commentator, penned an op-ed on Monday in which he lists the “15 most overrated white people” — a very interesting way to observe the national holiday.

“Today, our nation engages in one of its most bizarre cultural rituals: the celebration of Columbus Day as a national holiday. Although history proves that Christopher Columbus was an immoral treasure hunter who merely stumbled upon a region that had already been ‘discovered’ by indigenous non-whites, we continue to praise the vicious conquistador as a hero,” Hill writes in his blog post published onthe Huffington Post.

“To honor the true spirit of Columbus Day, I have created my own list of overrated white people. Of course, this list is not exhaustive, as there are countless other White people who are equally underwhelming,” he continues.

In an explosive report set to send shockwaves through official Washington, theGovernment Accountability Institute (GAI)released a 108-page GAI investigation into the threat of foreign and fraudulent Internet campaign donations in U.S. federal elections(visitcampaignfundingrisks.comto download the full report).

Breitbart News obtained an advance copy of the bombshellreportwhich reveals that the Obama.com website is not owned by the president’s campaign but rather by Obama bundlerRobert Roche, a U.S. citizen living in Shanghai, China. Roche is the chairman of a Chinese infomercial company, Acorn International, with ties to state-controlled banks that allow it to “gain revenue through credit card transactions with Chinese banks.”

There’s more.

The unusual Obama.com website redirects traffic directly to a donation page on the Obama campaign’s official website, my.barackobama.com, which does not require donors to enter their credit card security code (known as the CVV code), thereby increasing the likelihood of foreign or fraudulent donations. The website is managed by a small web development firm, Wicked Global, in Maine. One of Wicked Global’s employees, Greg Dorr, lists on his LinkedIn pagehis additional employment with Peace Action Maine and Maine Voices for Palestinian Rights. According to the GAI report, 68 percent of all Internet traffic to Obama.com comes from foreign visitors.

A new survey shows that 57% of likely voters think Pres. Obama would use any additional tax revenue to increase spending on government programs - not to reduce the debt/deficit.

According to the new nationwide survey conducted by The Tarrance Group for the non-profit group Public Notice, only 32% of Americans actually believe Obama would use the additional tax revenue to pay down the deficit, leaving 11% unsure how he'd use the money.

Likewise, fully 70% of voters say reducing government spending would be the best way to grow the economy, compared to only 23% who say more government spending would do the job (7% are "Unsure").

If you plan on visiting Detroit any time soon, the police have a message for you: “Enter Detroit at your own risk”. That ominous message was actually emblazoned across the top of a flyer that the Detroit Police Officer Association was passing out prior to a rally on Saturday. The flyer pointed out that Detroit is the most violent city in the nation and that more homicides are committed in Detroit than anywhere else. Meanwhile, the number of police officers in Detroit has been steadily decreasing. There are more murders in Detroit today than there were a decade ago, but the number of police officers in the city has decreased by about 1,000 over that time period. The remaining police officers are overworked and incredibly frustrated. But Detroit is far from alone. All over the nation there are major cities that are reporting a spike in crime even as police budgets are being slashed. Sadly, this is just the beginning. As the economy gets even worse, budget cuts will become even more severe and crime will become an even bigger problem.
In many areas of the country, police have become little more than report takers. If you report a crime that is not considered “high priority”, you will be lucky to get an officer to come out a few hours later to fill out a report.

In cities such as Detroit, criminals are becoming much bolder and are openly mocking the police. For example, according to a recent WND article, one gang has literally taken over a convenience store in Detroit and the police literally seem powerless to do anything about it….

Iranian scientists are nearing completion of a nuclear warhead, having already successfully tested an implosion system and neutron detonator at a secret site while enriching uranium to weapons grade, according to a former Iranian intelligence officer.

The information comes from Hamidreza Zakeri, formerly with the Islamic regime’s Ministry of Intelligence and National Security, or MOIS.

Zakeri previously testified at the federal district court in Manhattan in the Havlish v. bin Laden civil lawsuit, where he provided proof that Iran had materially aided and supported al-Qaida before and after 9/11.

The big three who can help save Afghanistan ... As its forces withdraw, Nato should not be afraid to seek help from Russia, India and Iran, says Shashank Joshi ... Exactly 11 years ago, with the wounds of 9/11 still fresh, the United States and Britain invaded Afghanistan. They arrived in anger, collected allies along the way, and grew in ambition. Today that anger has faded, those allies depleted, and their ambition exhausted ... There is no easy solution, but Nato should not be afraid to ask for help. – UK Telegraph

Dominant Social Theme: We need help and should ask our friends. We only want peace for Afghanistan.

Free-Market News: According to this UK Telegraph columnist, India, Iran and Russia should be approached about supporting Kabul in its attempts to maintain a centralized government in Afghanistan.

This is nothing more than a recipe for a civil war, however, and is line with other NATO and US efforts to maintain "stability" in the region. What is never mentioned about current efforts and what the mainstream media never probes is the actual composition of the army being set up in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan is made up of Pashtuns and other minorities that have been traditionally confrontational. It is the Pashtuns versus all the rest.

Once NATO goes, the Afghan army left behind will be charged with controlling all of Afghanistan. But as it is an army that is made up of tribes that are traditionally adversarial to the Pashtuns, this army has no chance to patrol peacefully throughout the country.

This article mentions nothing about this fundamental problem, though it does give us a larger summary of the war and its apparent winding down. Here's some more ...

Local media in Colorado are reporting that bankrupt Abound Solar, one of the administration’s many federal green energy funding recipients, is now under investigation by the local Weld County, Colo., district attorney.

7NEWS obtained internal documents from 2012 that show orders for tens of thousands of replacement solar panels. The orders cite different reasons for the replacements including, “low performance,” “under performance” and “catastrophic failures.”

Late last week, a bill HR 6566 was introduced on the floor of the US House of Representatives. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I read it.

The bill is entitled the “Mass Fatality Planning and Religious Considerations Act,” and its stated purpose is “[to] amend the Homeland Security Act of 2002 to require the Administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency to provide guidance and coordination for mass fatality planning…”

Hmmmm. Homeland Security. FEMA. Sounds like a fun party.

The bill was introduced a week ago, but it took the US Government Printing Office until this morning to actually make the text available to the public.

It turns out that my weeklong wait was for nothing. The bill itself is just a handful of paragraphs that merely reiterates the title… that the cracker jack team over at FEMA should be prepared to respond to mass fatalities in the United States, and to account for religious burial differences.

This is just one of those things that makes the stomach turn: the people who brought us the National Defense Authorization Act (authorizing the detention of US citizens on US soil) now deem it prudent to prepare for mass fatalities on US soil…

Moreover, they’re outsourcing it to one of the most failed government agencies in history.

FEMA, as you may recall, is the same organization that couldn’t get bottles of water delivered to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina… and held up hundreds of seasoned volunteer emergency service workers from entering the city for several days of mandatory sexual harassment training.

The American Freedom Defense Initiative sued last month for the right to display the ads in the Metro system. They read: "In Any War Between the Civilized Man and the Savage, Support the Civilized Man. Support Israel. Defeat Jihad."

“It is savagery, and calling attention to savagery is not hate,” said Pamela Geller, the creator of the campaign. “Calling attention to savagery is love.”

The commercial fire at the Waterman’s Seafood Company, leading to the evacuation of the crowded restaurant and closing a vast section of Route 50 in both directions for several hours on Friday, originated in a second-floor attic area and was caused by a faulty electrical circuit, the Worcester County Fire Marshal’s Office announced on Tuesday.

The fire was reported around 6:45 p.m. on Friday and first-arriving units from the Ocean City Fire Company reported fire extending from the roof area of the two-and-half story landmark restaurant on Route 50 in West Ocean City. The restaurant was open and crowded at the height of the dinner rush on a busy Friday evening, but the evacuation was orderly, if not all that fast, according to a source at the scene, but employees and guests got out and no one was injured.

In the aftermath, the restaurant’s tables were still covered with drinks and food left behind by the evacuated guests including piles of steamed crabs. One of the restaurant’s owners was reportedly in the facility at the time enjoying steamed crabs with friends.

In this recession, the economy has lost a net 3.4 million jobs from its 2008 peak that have yet to be recovered. Meanwhile the working age population has grown by more than 11.1 million — creating a 13.5 million (and widening) jobs gap that will not be filled easily no matter who wins the election on November 6

At the first presidential debate, Barack Obama tried to put a nice spin on this dismal situation, claiming millions in private sector jobs growth in the past 30 months. But this is false comfort.

Since the job market’s bottom in December 2009, the meager jobs growth we are currently seeing of about 150,000 per month is still not keeping up with population growth of about 200,000 each month.

Therefore, it has had little effect on the unemployment rate – which had been above 8 percent for 43 straight months, the longest period of sustained high unemployment since the Great Depression.

For new entrants into the workforce, the hiring prospects out there are particularly grim, especially for recent college graduates, about half of whom alarmingly cannot find work according to aRutgers study.

Fairfax County is the only county in Virginia history with a federal mandate to provide language assistance to English-deficient Hispanic voters in a presidential election — a development delighting activists, straining election officials and worrying those who argue that voters should know English well enough to participate without help.

The Old Dominion’s most populous jurisdiction and a critical battleground in a must-have state in the presidential race, last year was required to give the assistance under a section of the Voting Rights Act. The law applies to about 250 jurisdictions across the country.

The October 2011 announcement didn’t leave much time to gird for state and local races a month later, but the county prepared furiously — and continues to do so, registrarCameron Quinnsays.

Residents of a mobile home park suspected their neighbor of abusing puppies and kittens and grew so concerned for the animals' welfare that they took matters into their own hands.

The concerned neighbors said that the problems had been going on for months. The neighbors, who did not want to be named for fear of retaliation, witnessed some horrors at the hands of the alleged abuser.

One neighbor says she spotted four puppies and three kittens stuffed together inside a tiny bird cage in the backyard. She was greatly disturbed, but even more so after her daughter questioned the woman. "When my daughter questioned her about it, her response was, 'I'm sick of (the animals)' and she was going to snap the necks on the kittens and throw the dogs out the windows when she drove down the road," the neighbor toldWNYT News

Black Friday, that day after Thanksgiving which is now associated with people queuing up in the cold and dark to take advantage of marketing buzz words like “doorbuster” and “BOGO,” is always touted as a chance for consumers to save piles of cash at the store, but another study confirms what we’ve been telling you for years: Black Friday isn’t always the best time to buy.

Target is in the middle of ramping up for the all-important holiday shopping season by hiring a slew of folks to slip on a red shirt for a few weeks, but the retailer says it expects to hire 2,000-12,000 fewer seasonal employees this year than it did in 2011. Target also says this shouldn’t be seen as a bad thing.

In what's becoming an annual ritual, the smelly, annoying scourge of homeowners from coast-to-coast is crawling inside homes across the country this fall as the weather cools.

"Stink bugs move indoors in late September and early October," explains Russ Horton, entomologist for pest control company HomeTeam Pest Defense in Dallas. "They go into hibernation during winter and emerge in early spring." They like hiding in attics and inside walls.

Sesame Workshop has asked the Obama campaign to take downa new TV adthat prominently features the famous talking bird, in a satirical spot mocking Mitt Romney for calling for an end to PBS subsidies.

"Sesame Workshop is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization and we do not endorse candidates or participate in political campaigns. We have approved no campaign ads, and as is our general practice, have requested that the ad be taken down," Sesame Workshop said in a statement.

President Obama touted it in 2010 as evidence "manufacturing jobs are coming back to the United States,” but two years later, a Michigan hybrid battery plant built with $150 million in taxpayer funds is putting workers on furlough before a single battery has been produced.

Workers at the Compact Power manufacturing facilities in Holland, Mich., run by LG Chem, have been placed on rotating furloughs, working only three weeks per month based on lack of demand for lithium-ion cells.

The Turkish-Syrian Skirmish Is Being Taken Out Of Context

The mainstream American press has trumpeted for days[15] the claim that Turkey is “retaliating” for artillery fire coming from Syrian government forces on the Syrian-Turkish border near the town of Akçakale.

Because Turkey is a member of Nato (for 50 years[16]), a declaration of war by Turkey could well drag Nato into a conflict.

The Turkish people don’t like the turn of events … thousands of Turks took to the the streets[17] in Ankara and Istanbul after Turkey’s parliament approved military operations against targets in Syria following the mortar attacks.

It was unknown whether the mortar shells were fired by Syrian government forces or rebels fighting to topple the government of President Bashar al-Assad. The Turkish response seemed to assume that the Syrian government was responsible.

Many alternative news sources claim that this was a “false flag” attack to justify a Turkish attack on Syria.

The press wet its small-clothes over Mitt Romney’s ebullience in last Thursday’s so-called debate, as these joint interview contests are styled these days. What a jaunty fellow Mitt came off as, compared to poor Mr. Obama, cloaked in presidential gloom, the wearisome woes of high office and all that – or perhaps just some indigestible tidbit served out of Air Force One’s galley, an infected cocktail weenie, a shrimp with attitude, or an empanada with the E coli blues, who knows….

To be sure, Mr. Romney’s ebullience had a crafted tang to it, like one of those pumpkin-flavored beers made for the season, especially since all that verve was employed in the service of ebullient lying, statistical confabulation, and self-contradiction. At times his sheer manic zest veered in the direction of what used to be called hebephrenia in the old clinical sense of someone euphorically out-of-touch with reality.

Alienation from reality being at the very core of the current zeitgeist, the American public can only admire somebody who displays such a buoyant disregard for what is actually happening in the universe. To me, Mr. Romney just gave off the odor of someone who will do anything to get elected while Mr. Obama evinced the dejection of someone doubting it was worth it.

Of course, the issues this time around are framed with the presumption that all the current rackets of political economy can be kept running – everything from Fannie Mae to Medicare to suburbia to the systematic looting of the future by the Federal Reserve’s shell-game operations with every loser bond instrument lately fobbed off on hopelessly rigged markets – which is exactly the opposite of what reality has in store for us. In fact, the salient feature of these times is the remorseless running down of all these rackets to their entropic end points.